Sunday, May 24, 2009

STATIONS OF THE CROSS: 9th – From Court to Court

Jesus, who will one day judge the world, was treated unjustly in the courts of men. On the night before His crucifixion, He was passed on from judge to judge, a victim of injustice at the hands of people who were to safeguard the due processes of justice.

Very often misdeeds of injustice are done under the cover of darkness. Non-conformists, revolutionaries and dissenters have often been arrested around midnight and hauled away to unknown locations and held incommunicado and without legal aid. When police have a deadline to solve a case, it is in the dead of the night that they have barged into the homes of slum-dwellers, or picked up the homeless from pavements. And so it was that they came late at night to arrest Jesus. The Jewish officials didn’t want the public to know that they had arrested Jesus, the popular teacher who was challenging their authority, and risking the nation’s limited freedoms (Jn.11:48).

The High Priest and his party wanted Jesus dead. But they had no power to award anyone the death penalty. They had to find cause. They set up false witnesses, but it was discovered that they would not be able to stand up to any examination in a Roman court of law (Mk.14:55-59).

There were procedural rules about how the Jewish Sanhedrin was to conduct a trial. Though there was nothing in writing, that there were rules is evident the Mishnah (circa AD 170) which was merely a record of the oral tradition. In the fourth order Neziḳin (injuries) there are ten treatises, one of which is about the Sanhedrin and deals chiefly with judicial procedure and criminal law. According to the Mishnah the high priest could not participate in the questioning, the verdict was not to be given on the same day as the trial, the charge of blasphemy required God's name be explicitly pronounced, and someone is required to defend the accused.

When due process is not observed, injustice is always done. Clearly the establishment is railroading the person whom it has ganged up to finish off. When no cause to recommend the death penalty was found, the High Priest extracted a confession under the most solemn oath requiring the prisoner to answer (14:60-64).

Like those denied justice today, Jesus was shunted from one court to another, without getting justice at any of them. The High Priest sent the case to the Roman Governor Pilate. The charge was treason. The Messiah was caricatured as a political threat to the Caesar (Jn.19:12), opposing payment of taxes to Caesar and implying that Jesus Himself was collecting the due taxes (Lk.23:2). The governor was cornered by explicitly telling him that he was no friend of Caesar’s if he set the rebel free (Jn.19:12).

Pilate, though he was the highest authority in the land as Rome’s representative, looked for a way to not have to do something that was so obviously illegal and unjust. The moment he heard that Jesus was a domicile of Galilee, Pilate passed the responsibility of judgment in the matter to Herod, the king of Galilee (Lk.23:6-7).

Herod was delighted. He was one who needed entertainment all the time and hoped to have Jesus perform what he supposed were magic tricks. When Jesus wouldn’t oblige, Herod decided to get his entertainment anyhow: the prisoner was subjected to abuse (vv.8-12).

When Herod passed the prisoner’s case back, Pilate tried again to get out of passing judgment on an innocent man. But he was not able to withstand the pressure that was brought on him. He felt a need to distance himself from the lonely prisoner, lest Caesar hear of his having sided with a rebel. He washed his hands of the case (Matt.27:24), abdicating from the responsibility to safeguard justice.

The mob, instigated by the Jewish officials, demanded that the prisoner be crucified. They wanted to see a public execution. They didn’t care that there was no clear and solid evidence of misconduct. They bayed for his death. Given the fact that there were no grounds for an execution, the death of Jesus was nothing less than a lynching.

An unlawful arrest, false accusations and false witnesses, official interference with the process of justice, prisoner abuse for pleasure, abdication of responsibility and mob justice—Jesus suffered it all as He was passed from court to court.


There was nothing attractive about Him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at Him and people turned away.
We looked down on Him, thought He was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains He carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought He brought it on Himself,
that God was punishing Him for His own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to Him,
that ripped and tore and crushed Him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through His bruises we get healed...
He was beaten, He was tortured, but He didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared, He took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and He was led off...
Even though He'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.
Still, it's what GOD had in mind all along,
to crush Him with pain.
The plan was that He give Himself as an offering
for sin so that He'd see life come from it...
Because He looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because He embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on His own shoulders the sin of the many,
He took up the cause of all the black sheep (Isa.53:2-5, 7-10, 12, TM).
If you feel harassed and victimised by people in power, know that Jesus understands your feelings. He has had your kind of experiences.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

STATIONS OF THE CROSS: 8th - The Garden of Gethsemane

This article was developed from one of the points of the message preached on Maundy Thursday, April 9, 2009

On the night before His Crucifixion, after observing the Passover, Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane (Mk.14:32, at the foot of the Mount of Olives. John’s doesn’t mention Gethsemane by name, but says that Judas knew about the place since Jesus went went there often with His disciples (18:1-2).

The man who had let Jesus have the use of the upper room in his house to facilitate Jesus and His disciples gathering to observe the Passover stood in danger. Jesus would not want to be arrested while in the man’s house, as the authorities would take cognizance of it and charge him with harbouring an enemy of the state.

There was also the matter of the mood having turned heavy and sorrowful in the room. Jesus was deeply disturbed as He talked of the impending betrayal, desertion and denial that He would suffer at the hands of His disciples (Jn.13:21). That disturbed state of mind caught on as the disciples worried themselves trying to find out who would want to betray their beloved teacher (Matt. 26:22).

As an itinerant teacher, Jesus was used to open spaces. As He finished the Passover meal and giving last-hour instructions about how they were go on after He was gone, Jesus felt that He needed to get out of the close confines of the room and breathe the free air of the familiar garden.


Human Need for Fellowship
Jesus went to the garden for the specific purpose of praying. Then why did He drag His disciples along?

Before the Passover night, previous episodes of Jesus at prayer show Him alone (14:22-23). Whenever the disciples found Him praying, it that was not because He intended to show them that He was praying. After having taught that prayer in the secrecy of aloneness is valued by God for its sincerity (6:5-8), He Himself was unlikely to take them along to “show” them that He was praying.

That night Jesus had a reason for wanting His disciples with Him. Though He needed to do His praying by Himself, He just wanted them there near Him (Mk.14:32). Jesus needed companionship and fellowship like everyone else. He wanted their moral support. He needed to know that they were with Him.

Peter, James and John were Christ’s special aides. They accompanied Him everywhere, from the room where Jairus’ daughter lay dead (Mk. 5: 37), to the Mount of Christ’s Transfiguration (9:2). That night Jesus asked them to go further with Him and to support Him in prayer by keeping vigil with Him (Matt.26:36). But they slept through His crisis.

All of us need to know that we do not struggle alone, but that there are others to share our experiences and empathize with us. When people feel that they alone bear the burden of the war against evil, they are tempted to give up the fight. And some do, because all around them they see those who compromise or have embraced evil and prospered.

Paul wrote about Christian fellowship to the church at Philippi. The Greek word for fellowship is koinonia. This word or a form of it is used in four places in that letter.

  • Koinonia in the gospel (1:5)
  • Koinonia of grace (1:7)
  • Koinonia with the Spirit (2:1) 
  • Koinonia of sharing in His sufferings (3:10) 
  • Koinonia of sharing—with a believer in Christ (4: 14-15)
The first, second and third aspects of Christian fellowship that Paul referred to, strikes a responsive chord in our hearts, while there is a somewhat reluctant admission that the fifth is an aspect of fellowship. But the notion that fellowship that is Christian also participates in suffering is not often mentioned in most churches or Christian groups, especially in these days when every tele-evangelist promotes the health and wealth or the prosperity gospel.

Peter wrote that Christians get the strength to resist the Devil from knowing that we are not alone in paying the cost of the war.

Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings ( I Peter 5:9).
The writer of Hebrews wrote that keeping fellowship is not something Christians can neglect. It is the things that are not considered important that we tend to neglect. Fellowship must not be clubbed with what is not important. It is an essential for the Christian life. The writer commands that fellowship be maintained:
Let us think about each other and help each other to show love and do good deeds. You should not stay away from the church meetings, as some are doing, but you should meet together and encourage each other. Do this even more as you see the day coming (Heb.10:24-25, NCV).
It is for the flimsiest of reasons that so many neglect attending fellowship regularly. We would never use those kind of excuses to get out of anything else. But when it comes to gathering with others for worship and fellowship, washing clothes, cleaning the house, unexpected visitors dropping in on Sundays, tiredness, are all considered valid cause for absenting oneself. The writer of Hebrews challenges us to examine the consequences of our absence. Has someone been disappointed and discouraged by your negligence? Or, has someone been influenced by your example to embrace complacency in spiritual matters?

Jesus longed for the fellowship of His disciples. And today, when we fail brothers and sisters who long for our fellowship, we are back in the garden of Gethsemane, for the Lord said that whatever we do to brothers and sisters, we do to Him. When we neglect them or hurt them, we do it to the Lord (Matt. 25: 31-46).

Hurt by Betrayal
Jesus came back to His disciples after a time of prayer and He found His disciples were all sleeping. He did this three times. When anyone decides to pray for long, he or she doesn’t take breaks from prayer. The whole purpose of praying for long would be defeated.

Why then did Jesus come back between His periods of prayer? I am sure that it was not to play the policeman in the disciples’ lives. He was not that kind of rabbi. Rather, Jesus came back to feel their presence and support.

Jesus was hurt that His disciples did not keep vigil with Him. Each time He came back to feel supported and cared for, He found Himself totally abandoned. Jesus said,

Stay alert; be in prayer so you don’t wander into temptation without even knowing you’re in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there’s another part that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire (Matt. 26:41, TM)
If you want to be there for someone who is hurting, it takes sacrificial effort that will tax you. When a friend is seriously ill, we keep vigil at the hospital. When someone is terribly distressed, we stay to comfort the person. But staying watchful in prayer suspends what we ourselves could do in our human strength. That’s why the disciples slept. It wasn’t that they didn’t care for Jesus. It was because prayer suspended their activity. But sometimes all our prattling and all our frantic activity cannot help. Only turning to God can. Are we there for our friends then—to pray long with them?

After the time of prayer got over, Judas arrive to betray the Lord with a kiss. Jesus was hurt that His friend Judas was using the sign of friendship to betray Him. Jesus challenged Judas to think about what He was doing:
Judas, is it with a kiss that you betray the Son of Man? (Lk. 22:48, GNB)
It is always sad when we use signs and symbols of love to cover harmful intentions.

While Judas betrayed Jesus to the authorities, all the other disciples abandoned Him and ran for their lives. Later that night Peter would deny Him, though Peter and all the others had sworn that they would remain by His side.

The fact that Judas betrayed Christ did not mean that he could not be forgiven. After all Jesus did say, “If anyone denies me, him will I deny before my Father in heaven” (Mk. 8:38). Even after Peter denied Jesus thrice, he was not rejected forever by the Lord. He was restored after the Resurrection. Similarly Judas could have been restored. Jesus reached out to him by asking him to consider the atrociousness of his using a kiss to betray one who had never harmed him, but accepted him as he was. But Judas does not respond to Jesus’ overture of love, unlike Peter who was reduced to tears of repentance when Jesus looked into Peter’s eyes (Lk. 22:61).

Jesus does not break the bruised reed or put out the spark in the smouldering wick (Matt.12:20). Whenever anyone comes to Jesus, he or she will never be driven away by Christ Jesus (Jn.6:37). Judas could have returned to Jesus instead of rejecting Jesus when He reached out to Him.

Having No Will
Here is what Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane:

Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done (v.42)
The cross was not easy for the Lord. He found it extremely hard to accept it in His life. He wanted to escape it. He prayed hard for God to change His mind. He prayed for God to have a change of plan, not once, but thrice.

It was especially difficult for Jesus to accept this way of saving the world because He was so pure and could not stand the idea of being identified with sin. He, who was obedient to the Father, could not bear to be grouped with the Devil and the world in rebellion against God.

On the other hand, Jesus was and is the Father’s equal. If Jesus was not the Father’s equal, then He would have really had no choice but to give in to a power greater than His. But for someone who is equal, subordination is very hard. How hard it is to practise subordination in a situation of equality! But we need to learn from Jesus if we want to be citizens of the Upside Down Kingdom.

What Jesus prayed that night tells us what the essence of prayer is. Jesus addressed God as Father. The first thing that Jesus taught about prayer is that it is first an acknowledgement that God is our Heavenly Father. If God is not our Father, He would remain unapproachable. We are able to approach God only in the knowledge that He is our Father. He loves us. He will not harm us.

Jesus showed us that in the final analysis prayer is always submission to God. We go to God because we want Him to take over. If we are not ready to let Him take over, then we’re not praying. If you are not ready to say what Jesus said, you’re not praying. All prayer says to God,

It is because I want what You will give me, that I give up what I have wanted until now. I give up my plan, for Yours. It is not my will that I want done, but Yours. Not my way, but Yours is what I want.
And all God’s people said, Amen.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

STATIONS OF THE CROSS: 7th - The Upper Room of Communion

This is a modified version of the message preached on Maundy Thursday, April 9, 2009

It was the night before Jesus was to be crucified. It was the Saviour’s night of trials. That night on the way to the cross the Lord Jesus passed through three stations.

Jesus and His disciples had gathered to keep the Passover—the commemoration of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. It was compulsory for every Jew to celebrate this event that was foundational to the nation. God told the Israelites that anyone failing to keep the Passover would be cut off from the Jewish community (Num. 9:13).

While Jesus was growing up at home, He developed the habit of going to Jerusalem to keep the Passover. That’s what Mary and Joseph did with their family. When Jesus started His mission, He went to Jerusalem for the Passover, but without having any plan (see Jn. 2: 13). However in His last year on earth, Jesus planned the Passover observance (Lk. 22: 7-12).

Jesus had obviously discussed matters with a personal contact and arranged that a room would be available to enable Him to keep the Passover with His disciples.

Contrary to Leonardo Da Vinci’s depiction of the Last Supper, Jesus and His disciples didn’t all sit on one side of the table as though posing to have their picture taken. Another thing wrong with Da Vinci’s painting is that anachronistically he portrayed all of them sitting with their legs tucked under the table, whereas in Jesus’ time, Jews and others reclined on couches around low tables. That explains the need for feet to be washed before a meal. When people walked on dirt roads with open sandals on their feet (not with socks and closed shoes), their feet would get very dirty, and when they reclined to eat, their feet would be on level with others. It sounds strange, but mothers must have said, “Children don’t forget to wash your feet before you come to the table.”

It is in the gospel according to John that we are given the most details of what Jesus did and said that night at the Passover meal.

Servant (John 13)
Whenever people gathered for a meal, usually the task of washing feet was done by a slave or the youngest person present. But in the Upper Room, all the disciples of Christ were equal. None of them was really higher or lower. However the question about who among them would have the most power and privilege was something they argued a lot about. Jesus had clearly taught them that the quest for power was not to be a pursuit for His followers (Matt. 18:1-4).

This was a hard lesson to learn. Absolutely no one else in the world thought that power and the perks of high position were undesirable. Jesus was the only philosophy and ethics teacher who taught this kind of thing. But boys will be boys, men will be men, and humans will long to have a little more power and privilege than neighbours and friends, and so, James and John, knowing that Jesus was considerate toward women, unlike other rabbis, got their mother to try to extract a promise from Jesus that they would be the ones to sit on either side of Jesus. Once again Jesus had to teach that His Kingdom was an upside down one in which the last would be first, the greatest would be the servant (20:20-28), and then again Jesus had to teach it in a one-line slogan, that there is only one Master and all the rest are brothers (23:8).

Don’t we have to be taught again and again, and do we always learn the lessons of godliness? The disciples were just like us. Though they had been taught this lesson about not serving Jesus with an eye on position, they still desired it. And so it was, that while the room had been readied for the Passover observance, no one was assigned to do the washing of feet.

Even that night they were quarrelling about who would be greatest (Lk. 22:24). Jesus waited. There were no signs that anyone was going to wash others’ feet. They quickly took their places around the Passover meal. They acted as if there was no custom to wash feet. Sadly, because no one wanted to wash the feet of the other disciples, each of them failed to honour even their Teacher. Each thought, “If I pick up the basin, I will be out of the race. All the others will take advantage of me and form a line to have their feet washed after I wash the Lord’s feet. I would like to honour the Lord, but I had better not do it, if I want to be at the top.”

When we refuse to pick up basin and towel in the service of others, we ignore the Lord too. When our aim is to get to the top, somewhere along the way we do step past Jesus.

As the food was brought to the table, Jesus got up, stripped off his outer garment and wore a towel around His waist. Dressed that way He resembled a slave. Jesus picked up the basin and started to wash the disciples’ feet and dried them with the towel around his waist. While Peter protested the enormity of what Jesus was doing, the others were just too stunned, and maybe frightened, to react (Jn.13:1-17).

Jesus drew their attention to the fact that He had been a slave among them (Lk. 22:27). Jesus, as the Teacher of the group, had the power of life and death over them. That is the kind of power teachers had in olden days. In India we have the story of how Eklavya asked Dronacharya to teach him archery. Dronacharya had refused to teach the low caste Eklavya the skills that were to be the exclusive domain of the high caste. Eklavya made a clay image of Dronacharya and bowing before it as to his teacher, Eklavya taught himself archery. One day when it was discovered that Eklavya had excelled Dronacharya’s high caste student Arjun in archery, Dronacharya demanded that Eklavya give him his right thumb as guru dakshina (the teacher’s payment given in abject homage. Eklavya did as ordered and of course lost the ability to shoot. That is the kind of power that teachers had long ago. Jesus had that kind of power that night. But He refused to exercise it. He could have given an order or humiliated anyone of them—from the eldest to the youngest, or the one who felt most important or the one who felt he was closest to Jesus. But Jesus does not do that. Instead

  • He stepped down from His position above them. 
  • He stripped down and dressed up like a slave. 
  • He knelt like a slave before them. 
  • He took their dirty feet in His hands. 
Jesus said to them that He had set them “an example” (Jn.13:15). Jesus never said that about any of the other things He had taught them by example. For instance, they desired to learn to pray after seeing Him pray, but He never remarked that He was their example in prayer. He is indeed our example in prayer, but Jesus didn’t make it a point to say so. It was only when He washed their feet, that Jesus made it a point to say that He had set an example. The other things He had done and taught had stirred them. But in the matter of learning that His kingdom was an upside down one they never did, even though He had tried to teach them again and again. Sometimes we don’t learn what the Lord wants us to learn until we are shocked. That’s exactly how the disciples learnt their lesson. That night when Jesus resorted to giving them the shock treatment of washing their feet, the disciples finally learnt the lesson.

When we read through the book of Acts, we find that the Apostles do not seek office or cling to power. Peter who took the lead at the beginning (1:15; 2:14), submitted to being questioned by the commonality of the Church (11:2), and remained answerable to them (v.4). Later Peter readily allowed a newcomer to take over the chair at the first all church council meeting (15:13, 19-21).

The Apostle John introduces the account of Jesus His disciples’ feet with these words:

Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love…Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God (vv. 1,3).
John is right. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, John wrote that Jesus had such tremendous confidence in His Father, that Jesus didn’t feel He had to guard His status and pride. And, His love came with no restraints and limitations. He didn’t hold back.

Just as He loved His disciples, Jesus wanted them to love one another. He said that if love was the mark of their lives then people would know that they belong to Him and would follow Him (vv. 34-35). God has poured His love into our lives without any limits. When God gives us anything, we need not fear that what we have been given will be exhausted. It won’t. When God gives us anything, He actually gives us Himself, and we will never exhaust Him or His power.

Saviour (John 14)
Jesus said that it was time for Him to return to His Father. With Jesus having gone ahead, no one need fear when it is time to leave this earth. We will be going to Jesus, who will escort us when it is time to enter the huge mansion of His Father. If you wonder what lies ahead, just remember Jesus will be there, and He has been preparing for our arrival so that once we get there He can spend all the time with us (vv.1-3).

Jesus told His disciples that the only way anyone could reach the Father was through Jesus alone:

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through me (14:6, NCV).
Not knowing what the Father looks like, we need someone who knows Him intimately to show Him to us. As John said, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (1:14, NRSV). Without Jesus our fear of God will keep us from getting close to Him.

Jesus emphasised that when people keep His commandments the Holy Spirit comes into lives and takes residence (14:15-16). That’s because our obedience proves that we love Him (v.21). It is in this relationship with Jesus that we discover God’s love for us. (v. 22), and the Father and our Lord will feel at home with us (v.23).

Jesus made it clear that God wants to relate to people. What God is looking for is love for Him. God wants a relationship with us. That’s why there is no other way to experience God. He will remain distant, until we discover Him in and through Jesus.

Sustenance (John 15)
When Jesus had fed the five thousand, He had announced that He Himself was the Bread of life:
I am the bread of life…Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty…I am telling you the truth: he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life…the bread that comes down from heaven is of such a kind that whoever eats it will not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give him is my flesh, which I give so that the world may live…I am telling you the truth: if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in yourselves. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them to life on the last day. For my flesh is the real food; my blood is the real drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood live in me, and I live in them. The living Father sent me, and because of him I live also. In the same way whoever eats me will live because of me. This, then, is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread that your ancestors ate. They later died, but those who eat this bread will live forever” (6: 32-39).
What this means is that just as we need food and drink to sustain life, we need Jesus to help us live the life of godliness. We can’t live lives that please God without Jesus feeding our resolve.

On His last Passover night, Jesus once again made it clear to His disciples that their spiritual life depended on them drawing sustenance from Him. He took the bread and said that it would aid their memory of Him, that He gave His life for them (Lk.22:19) and the cup of wine would remind them that He restored the covenant-relationship with God through the forgiveness bought by His blood (Matt.26:2).

Jesus explained that like branches of a tree His followers must remain connected to Him who is the source of life for us (15:1-8). Without Him we cannot live connected to God or draw on God’s life-giving power.

Spirit (John 16)
Jesus assured His disciples that they would not be abandoned like orphans (14:18). He would send another Counsellor (v.16). Jesus’ use of the word “another” is significant. He clearly indicated that the Spirit would be different from Him, but would be like Him. That means that the Spirit would not be less in status and power than Him, but the equal of the Lord Jesus. That is why the Spirit would be His substitute.

What the Spirit would teach would be what Jesus Himself had taught. The Spirit would turn their attention toward Jesus reminding them of things Jesus taught. (v. 26; 15:26; 16: 12-15). In fact Jesus spelt it out that the Spirit would not teach something different and new (16:13).

New Testament writers occasionally referred to the Holy Spirit as “Spirit of Jesus” (Acts 16:7; Phil. 1:19). It is when they consider the Holy Spirit without reference to Jesus erred in their understanding and conduct. While many Pentecostals seem to think of the Spirit as taking them beyond Jesus to new horizons, many in non-Pentecostal churches, in a knee-jerk reaction to the excesses of Pentecostalism think of the Spirit as the rival of the Lord Jesus. There is a desperate need for us to get back to what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit. What He said is basic. When we ignore what Jesus taught, we are great danger of losing the way to God.

Supplication (John 17)
Probably the only time the disciples heard the words of Jesus’ prayer was that night. Earlier on they had only seen Him pray. They observed the ease with which He prayed. They noted that He was regular in prayer. They asked Him to teach them how to pray.

That night for the first time they heard Him. They must have been in awe as they heard the emotion in His voice, the intimacy of how He talked to the Father, and the longing that He had for them to reach what He desired for them.

Jesus gloried in the fact that He had been able to introduce the Father to His disciples He rejoiced that they had already started on eternal life, because it is the quality of our life in relationship with God is what eternal life is (v.3).

As He left them behind, He prayed for their protection (vv.11-15), their holiness (vv.16-17) and their unity so that by their oneness they will be effective in their proclamation that Jesus is the only one who has come from God (vv.20-23).

What a night! Jesus was Servant to His own followers. That was the way to be the Saviour, and become our Sustenance, and give us the Spirit to keep us connected to Jesus, and in the end, way back then He supplicated even for us today (v.20). Let all God’s people say,
Amen.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

STATIONS OF THE CROSS 6

Message preached on Palm Sunday, April 5, 2009.
Posting late because of extra commitments, including ministry away from Lucknow


Here’s a question for you to answer: did Jesus ever ride a donkey before the last week of His life on earth? Most people would say that He had done so as a baby. That’s because all our Christmas cards show Mary riding a donkey with Joseph on foot. So it is assumed that when the family fled to Egypt, Mary must have ridden the donkey and carried Baby Jesus in her arms. But those pictures do not represent any of the information we have in the Bible.

Here’s what we know about the family that could contradict that picture. Joseph was poor. He didn’t require a donkey to go about his work because he was a village carpenter. If it was something that he had to repair for someone at their home, he may have carried his bag of tools on his shoulder and walked to the place.

Would Joseph have been so cruel as to make Mary walk all that way from Nazareth to Bethlehem? Not by choice. But the poor don’t have many choices. If Joseph didn’t already have a donkey, it was unlikely that he would be suddenly able to buy one just because Mary and he were compelled by law to travel to Bethlehem.

When Roshini and I were in Ethiopia doing pastors’ conferences in 2008, we were touched by the fact that the poor who needed to travel to another village or town would set out on foot, and when they heard a vehicle coming up behind them, they would turn and bow a number of times from the waist, holding out open palms and then touching their heads to beg for a lift. The thought came to me that rural Ethiopia must be so much like what it was in those ancient times described in the Bible.

Could Mary have walked the distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem so close to her delivery? When I was in seminary there was an African student’s wife who worked as a nurse in the campus clinic. The day she had her baby, she worked with the missionary doctor all morning, went home took care of her household chores, and then walked to the hospital and had her baby with no trouble at all. When our son Ishaaq was due to be born, Roshini decided that she was going to do some washing sitting on a low stool. In the afternoon the pains started, within about twenty minutes of getting to the hospital, the baby arrived with ease. Hard work never affects pregnancies and births adversely.

The Messiah Rode a Donkey
Rabbi Jesus went around teaching walking everywhere. He was a peripatetic teacher, typical of teachers of philosophy. Other teachers were attached to a school with pupils in attendance. But those who taught new ideas were not accepted as teachers and had to win a hearing and a following. That’s the kind of teacher Jesus was. He was a pilgrim, itinerant teacher.

After three years of walking everywhere, suddenly one morning Jesus announced that He needed a donkey. It was a departure from His customary style. He made a deliberate choice that day. Matthew said that Jesus did that to fulfill the prophecy by Zechariah:
Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey— riding on a donkey’s colt (9:9, LB).

Jesus sent two of His disciples to get the donkey. They were told to simply say to the owner of the animal, “The Master needs it” (Lk.19:31, NCV). The owner sent his donkey with the men. Would you ever readily part with a possession because someone came and told you that the Master needs it? I know I would have difficulty accepting the message. I would question the person’s credentials. Then I would wonder if he did get such an order from the Master. That man was ready. It would appear that he was expecting the Master to make such a request, and that is why he responded positively. I think that is the secret. One has to be ready and willing. Then when the Master’s order is delivered to us we do what we have been preparing to do.

When the donkey arrived, people give their cloaks to put on the animal’s back and to pave the path. A long time before Jesus, their favourite king, David, had stripped off his royal robes to be able to dance freely before the Lord God. He thought nothing of abandoning the pomp of his royal position and just being like everyone else, dancing without any inhibitions. David reminded his wife that he had had no status until God had given it to him. He said that he would never cling to it before the Lord. Rather he would humble himself even more if he could (2 Sam.6: 20-22). When someone encounters the Lord and asserts his or her status before God it is a confrontational act. It is an affront to the almightiness of God.

Centuries later, Walter Raleigh is reputed to have laid his expensive cloak over a muddy puddle so that Queen Elizabeth I wouldn’t get her feet dirty. Raleigh did it to gain the Queen’s favour and get ahead in the court. But the people in Judea were honouring the one they thought was the Messiah who would free them from Roman rule, and for those moments they were willing to honour Him by laying down their cloaks for Him to walk on.

The Jews of the period were looking for a Warrior Messiah, who would conquer and destroy their enemies. They failed to note the significance of the fact that Jesus was riding a donkey. Conquerors rode war horses. That is how the Roman victors rode into the cities of the lands they had conquered. The Jews forgot that Zechariah had prophesied the coming of a humble Messiah. Anyway they hailed their Messiah with cries of “Hosanna” which just means “Save!” They cried to God, “Hosanna in the highest [heaven]” (Matt. 21: 9). Their Messiah was not saved that week from death at the hands of His antagonists, but He is in the highest heaven.

The Man Who Cried for Citizens

As Jesus entered the city, He cried over it:
I wish you knew today what would bring you peace. But now it is hidden from you. The time is coming when your enemies will build a wall around you and will hold you in on all sides. They will destroy you and all your people, and not one stone will be left on another. All this will happen because you did not recognize the time when God came to save you (Lk. 19:42-44, NCV).
Earlier Jesus had cried at the tomb of His friend Lazarus (Jn. 11:35). “Jesus wept,” the sacred historian wrote and Robert Estienne (also known as Stephanus) who divided the New Testament into standard numbered verses, in 1555, seems to have been so touched by this fact that he demarcated them as constituting just one verse. Strange isn’t it that even though He knew that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, Jesus still cried at his grave. There could be only one reason Jesus did that: it was to show His common cause with humanity, that He shared our feelings, emotions and sorrows. Jesus was not insulated against feeling hurt.

Jesus had come to save His people. Jerusalem, the Temple city, represented the highest aspirations and the deepest longings of the nation. And so Jesus cried. Their hardness of heart and their blindness had prevented Him from saving them in toto. As a result of their rejection of Jesus, Jerusalem, which the Lord God had hallowed by giving His name to it, was going to be destroyed in the future. As the Son of God, Jesus cried that His Father’s beloved city would be ruined. Jesus attributed the cause of their hardness of heart to a lack of discernment about God’s clock having run its course with God’s Son having arrived on the scene.

The New Testament Church was warned that there was a need to discern the time:
So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times! (Eph. 5: 15-16, TM).
Be wise in the way you act with people who are not believers, making the most of every opportunity (Col. 4:5, NCV).
That was then. So much time has gone by since then. How much more we who live today need to be aware that the clock has kept running down. Our Lord told the story of 10 young women getting ready for a wedding. Five prepared beforehand by keeping their lamps filled with oil. Five thought that there was plenty of time before they would need the oil. They must have mocked those who “wasted” time with their preparation, while they themselves were having a blast. Suddenly, it was announced that the bridegroom was nearly there. It was time for the wedding. Those who had filled their time with fulfilling and self-satisfying activities rushed to the market to get oil for their lamps, but the market had closed for the day. There was no place to buy any oil (Matt. 24: 36-51).

It is true that Jesus will not arrive in the very next moment—because Jesus said that some things will have to happen before He returns. It is because we know that it will not happen right now, that we go on with life and forget that time is running out. The day is nearly here. But we are not paying attention to the ticking of the clock. We are people who are eligible for membership in the five foolish women’s club. Those women started with a commitment and desire to be there for the wedding. Their problem was that with so much time to be spent in waiting, they decided to get busy with all the things they wanted to do. They were distracted and diverted from waiting for D-day. If you check on your personal agenda you will find that it seems to have been copied entirely from the schedule kept by that women’s club.

The Master of the Temple
Entering Jerusalem, Jesus found His way to the heart of the city, the Temple of God. Once, at the beginning of His ministry He had gone into the Temple and cleansed it announcing what His ministry was going to be all about (Jn. 2:13-22). Many think that there was just one cleansing of the Temple. When you think about how Jesus had to repeat lessons, why should we think that He didn’t have to do this too more than once?

The Lord walked into the Temple and claimed it was His. He said, “My house”. The right to cleanse the Temple was His because of His ownership. Jesus claimed that His house was reserved for spiritual pursuits not commercial ones. Today, those who follow Jesus do not have brick or stone temples for the purpose of housing God, because He is Spirit, and does not inhabit manmade structures built to keep idols (4: 23-24). But the Apostle Paul made the observation that God inhabits us and we are His temples that must be kept holy because we are bought by the blood Jesus shed on the cross:
Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body (1 Cor. 6:19-20, NLT).
When Jesus cleansed the Temple, He turned it into a place of redemption. When all the commercial activity stopped, and space was freed, blind and crippled beggars waiting for alms from the devotees thronged Jesus and He healed them (Matt. 21: 14-15). They had never dared to enter the Temple before that because there was an edict to stop them from doing that (2 Sam. 5:8).

With all the commercial activity going on in the Temple precincts, poor beggars would not have felt welcome. Poor people always feel that the rich have no time and space for them. They had reason to feel that way so long ago in the time of our Lord’s sojourn on earth. The shouting and haggling, the buying and selling, must have all filled poor people visiting the Temple with the feeling that they would be getting in the way of important business. It was only when Jesus stopped it all and threw out the sellers and whatever they were selling that poor people felt that they could approach someone in the Temple who didn’t care a bit about all that business.

Those who suffered financial losses because of Christ’s disruption of their business, hid behind a protest that what was happening was sacrilegious. They said that such unruly behaviour as the crowd shouting was unbecoming conduct within the Temple. They didn’t think that the shouting and haggling, animal and bird noises, the refuse and the stench had not spoilt the sanctity, but the moment the crowd shouted “Hosanna” they protested. Jesus said that if He asked the crowd to shut up, the very stones of the Temple would shout the praises of God (Lk. 19: 39-40). John the Baptist had preceded Jesus with a similar remark, when he told religious leaders not to hide behind claims of Abrahamic parentage, because God could give stones the genes of Abraham (Matt. 3:9). True. God, who created the world out of nothing by merely commanding it into existence, could do it again and again anytime. It’s time we learnt that Jesus is the Lord. It’s time to praise Him with a sense of abandon—like David danced before the Lord, and that long ago Palm Sunday crowd went wild with ecstasy because Jesus had ridden into town.